A Stolen Life
by Acherubis
Summary: Marius Shaw has to deal with the consequences of killing a man.


**A Stolen Life**

 **9:25 Dragon**

The streets near the port are almost empty. Only a few people are about this time of night, mostly the desperate, the foolish and the drunk. In the relative silence, one can hear the waves licking at the quay and the soft murmuring of voices from inside the few taverns still open. The air is pregnant with the smell of salt and fish and things you'd rather not think about. It is warm, too, almost sticky.

But maybe it is not the hot and humid air that causes trickles of sweat to run down my back, wetting the fabric of my shirt as I cower in the shadow of some large cargo boxes. It certainly isn't what makes my hand on the hilt of my dagger shake. It also isn't what makes my heart beat in my chest like a war drum or my stomach feel as if it will turn at any given moment, no, ser.

I am about to kill a man.

I don't want to. I'm a thief, no murderer! My hands are quick and so are my feet. I know how to pick a lock just as well as a pocket and I'm the fastest runner in the Red Iron, but I have never before killed someone.

I can still feel the bruise Vince's fist left on my jaw when I dared to protest, hear his laugh when the man told me tonight that was going to change. It sends shivers down my spine even now, but this is Vince I'm talking about and you don't defy him, not ever. I forgot to follow that rule and it could have ended so much worse for me. I have witnessed what happened to those who were brave or foolish enough to try. Another cold wave runs down my spine as a memory flashes in front of my eyes: a young man not much older than me, stripped of his clothes, hands and feet bound, strung up on a lamp post, his body beaten to a pulp.

Shaking my head, I try to think of something comforting as my clammy fingers clench and unclench around the hilt of the dagger. As almost always when I feel on edge, I wonder what my siblings are doing right now. Jenny, Julia, Lucy and Finn are probably already fast asleep, dreaming of puppies and adventures. Colin…

The hesitant smile that wants to creep onto my lips with the thought of my youngest siblings fades away before it can fully form. I know Colin's out doing messenger duties. It is not an uncommon thing for the Lowtown kids to do. There is always someone somewhere who will pay a coin or two to get their letters and packages delivered as fast as possible and there are more than enough volunteers. Mine is not the only family desperate for food, warmth and clothes.

Not everyone will take on after dark deliveries, though, because those are dangerous. I wish Colin wouldn't take them either, but they are better paid and our family needs every last coin we can get our hands on. I know that better than anyone. It's why I don't try to keep my brother from doing his messenger work even though I still worry. It's why I'm here, in the shadows, waiting for the unfortunate soul whose life I am ordered to end.

I still don't want to do this, but I have to keep in mind why it is necessary. My family will suffer the consequences if I don't see this through. Not only will it mean that Colin won't get the new shoes he needs before the days get colder, but also that my sick sister won't get the medicine she needs or that my youngest brother Finn won't get a new shirt and pants.

It will also mean they'll be in grave danger. Once, a hired blade managed to steal a score of gems from a raid at the docks. Vince never found him. However, he did find the man's sister and his father. Both their throats were cut to pay the debt.

I can't afford to take that chance. If I do this right tonight, my share will raise and I will be able to afford new clothes, new shoes, and Jenny's medicine. For once, I will be able to provide my family with what they need. If I don't take care of them, nobody will. That's just the way it is for the poor in Kirkwall.

 _I wish dad was still here. Everything would be different then._

The thought comes so unexpected, so abrupt, that it almost knocks me off my feet. I haven't thought of my father in a while. I've pushed the memory of him into the farthest corner of my mind because it hurts terribly to miss him so much.

I try to lock said memory back up, but it won't go away. Instead it brings tears to my eyes and more memories in its wake.

 _I see myself sitting on a stool in my father's smithy, watching him work the metal on the anvil, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Then he looks up and a smile just for me lights up his features. It makes me grin in return and I jump off my seat at his gesture to come over. He picks me up, sits me on his shoulders. He smells of iron and brimstone and his skin is hot and sweaty, but I don't mind. I bury my hands in his hair and let him carry me out of the smithy and across the yard to our house._

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, swallowing hard in an attempt to fight the scene that I know is going to play out in front of my inner eye next, but to no avail.

 _The smithy is burning. Flames lick at the walls, the roof, burst out of every window. Near the house, my mother holds onto my younger siblings and her rounded belly protectively, panic in her eyes and her voice while she calls my father's name as he frantically tries to put out the fire._

 _I am old enough to help and so I do, handing my father water bucket after water bucket, but it doesn't seem to have any effect at all. My lungs burn and I start coughing. Baba_ _yells at me to stay back, but I ignore his orders._

 _I stumble, the bucket in my hands tumbles to the ground, rolling towards the fire. I scramble after it, the only thought in my head that I need the damn thing to keep helping baba._

 _I don't even realize how close I got to the burning building until I hear a crack and a rumble above me. My eyes grow wide in a panic as I see the roof crumble, coming towards me in what feels like slow motion. I hear my father's scream, but I am unable to move…_

The next thing I remember is kneeling beside my father, my hands clenching into his shirt. I was told later that he pushed me aside and was caught by the falling beam instead of me. Someone pulled him out, probably one of the neighbors who came over to help. I don't know.

His last words were to take care of mom and the kids because now I would be the man of the household. He died in my arms shortly after.

I take a shuddering breath when I hear steps coming down the street, forcing the memory back. This is not the time to think of these things.

My hand is trembling, so I grab the hilt of my dagger harder to keep it under control. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins like fire, burning hotter the closer the steps get. I catch myself counting them, trying to estimate the time it will take for them to catch up with me.

Suddenly, there is a curse and the steps falter. I carefully peak around the corner of my crates to see what happened.

There is a man about seven yards away, trying to rub his shoe clean of something on the cobblestone. He fits Vince's description: tall, thin, short blonde hair, mid-twenties, fancy blue shirt, black pants.

Fear clutches at my chest, cold sweat beading on my forehead as I hold onto the edge of the crate with stiff fingers to keep my wobbling knees from giving out under me.

Seeing him there, the man I am about to kill, suddenly makes it all so much more real, so much more frightening. Murder is not a concept anymore, not an abstract thought that can be justified, mulled over and reasoned with.

Murder has a face now.

Everything inside of me screams in terror, screams at me to run, to hide, to _get the fuck out of here!_

But it's too late for that. I know Vince is watching. At this point, there is no backing out anymore. If I don't do what is expected of me, my family will suffer for it, just like the family of the poor sod stealing a few minor gems out of a load of hundreds.

So when the steps pick up their steady, slow rhythm again, drawing closer and closer, then passing me by, I move.

 _Mother. Colin. Jenny. Julia. Lucy. Finn._

Their names pound behind my forehead in time with his silent steps on the cobblestone, reminding me who I'm doing this for.

Step. _Mother_. Step. _Colin_. Step. _Jenny_ …

I keep to the shadows which is not all that hard. The docks are only sporadically lit this time of night. My feet make no sound as I creep up on my target which is not hard either because the man's pace is not quick. He feels safe.

Step. _Julia_. Step. _Lucy_. Step. _Finn_ …

My hands have ceased shaking, my knees are no longer wobbly. There is no fear anymore, no doubt. It should scare me. It might have if I stopped in my mantra long enough to think about it, but I don't. It is the only thing that keeps me going.

Step. _Mother_. Step. _Colin_. Step. _Jenny_ …

My right arm wraps around the man's shoulders from behind, my left comes up with my dagger in hand at the same time. There is a soft sound of surprise, almost a sigh, before the blade smoothly slides across the throat that made said sound, cutting skin, flesh, muscle.

I expected resistance and am surprised when there is almost none. I thought it would be harder…

The simplicity of it almost makes me laugh with relief and a sense of excitement that borders on ecstasy.

Until blood spills over my hands; warm, sticky, viscous blood.

Until I feel the body in my hold finally starting to struggle in the throes of death.

Until I hear the wet, gurgling sounds that come from a severed throat.

I pull back as if the man's body suddenly burst into flame, watching wide-eyed as he collapses on the pavement that is now sprinkled with red. His limbs are jerking spasmodically, hands clutching at his throat as if they could staunch the blood flow.

It is not the death struggle that finds me unable to look away, though. It is the man's eyes. They are wide with panic, pain and shock. And they are pleading. Pleading with me to _do something,_ to _help._

But I don't.

I couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm frozen in place, staring into the man's startling blue eyes. I stare until those eyes cloud over, become blind to the world; until the jerking and gurgling stops. But even then, I can't look away. There is bile on my tongue, the metallic stench of blood in my nose…

… and where thoughts escaped me before, now my mind bombards me with them, every single one as sharp and clear as broken glass.

He's looks so young. Not much older than me, really. He has a family somewhere, too. A father. A mother. Maybe siblings. Maybe a wife. He had friends. A life.

Will they miss him? Will they look for him and wonder what happened? Will they mourn him?

My legs finally give out and I land on my hands and knees beside the corpse, emptying out my stomach on the blood-stained cobble. The world is spinning, my body trembling violently, my vision blurry and narrowed. It is not blurry enough that I can't see his hands, however, covered in blood and glistening sickly in the light of the full moon and I whimper.

I barely notice Vince coming to my side, laughing, patting me on the back and telling me that I've done well. I don't care. Not for the praise and not for the pouch of coin my boss slips into my pocket. It's part of why I have done what I was told to do. It will sustain my family for another few weeks. But that thought doesn't hold any comfort anymore and where thinking of my family has given me strength before, it now makes me sick to the bone. I bend over once more, vomiting the rest of my stomach's contents onto the ground. Silent, shameful tears stream down my face, barely noticed.

When I'm finally able to move again, I stagger down the street, unseeing, unhearing. Vince calls after me, but it is just a distant background noise. Whatever he wants doesn't seem to be important enough to come after me, though, and I start to run.

I don't know what time it is when I return to the shabby hovel my family calls home. My hand on the knob is shaking as I open the door. It creaks on its hinges and if I was in any better state of mind it would have made me cringe like so many times before when I tried to get into the house without waking the kids.

There is still light inside. There always is. My mother rarely sleeps. I can see her sitting in that rickety chair on the far wall, close to the fireplace with its meager embers. The sight freezes me on the doorstep as an overwhelming wave of guilt and shame washes over me and makes my knees tremble. My throat closes up and my nails dig into the wooden boards of the door.

"Momma?" I call at her, eyes big and bright with unshed tears, voice small, barely more than a whisper.

I feel six years old again, having just broken my mother's crystal vase, an heirloom precious to her. I had been hiding in the woods for the better part of the day, feeling guilty and afraid. When I finally slinked back home, awaiting punishment, all mom did was hug me and tell me it had been just painted glass, that there could never be anything more precious than her little boy.

Strange, what kind of things come back to you in the most inappropriate moments. Maybe I remember because I wish for that hug again.

No, not wishing. _Craving_. _Longing_.

I'm desperate for a loving hug. For my mother's hands running through my hair, ruffling it like she used to do when baba was still alive. For her soothing voice telling me it's going to be alright.

I want my mom. I want her so bad it hurts.

And for a moment, when my mother does look my way, I can almost pretend to see a glimmer of relief in her eyes at the sight of me, a spark of that loving care that is but a distant memory now.

However, it is just that. Pretense. I am no longer her precious little boy sniffling over broken shards of glass.

Though she never put voice to it, I know she blames me for my father's death. I know it by the way she looks through me like I don't exist, hear it in her voice that instructs my siblings to "tell your brother". Her affection for me fled with baba's dying breath and I know, no matter what I do or how much I need her, I will never get it back.

I shouldn't blame her for that. My parents' love was one of a kind and I can only imagine how much his loss affected her. Yet, that doesn't change the fact that I feel betrayed by the absence of my mother's love every single day since that fateful accident. A mother's love should be unconditional, right? A mother's love should not judge, not blame, not punish.

I can't count the times I wanted to scream this accusation into her face, that I would do _everything_ to be _seen_ by her again, but I never did and probably never will. She is my mother and I love her because a son's love is as unconditional as a mother's should be.

I shrink back into the shadows of the doorway like a beaten dog, remaining there for what feels like an eternity, waiting, hoping, praying for a reaction, _any_ reaction _._

But as always, it never comes.

When I can't hold her unseeing stare any longer, I reach into my pocket for the pouch of coin pressing against my leg, burning my skin. It reminds me of what I had to do to earn it and it almost makes me sick again.

Pulling it out with shaking fingers, I look at it, still seeing blood everywhere. I made sure there was no trace of blood before I came home, scrubbing away all evidence of my misdeed from my hands and the pouch, but I can still see it.

The pouch nearly slips my fingers when I put it on the small board near the entrance where it lands with a dull thud, the sound reminding me of the young man in my grasp as he slipped to the cobble before me.

Suddenly, the air in the room seems too hot, the space too tight and my mother's unmoving gaze too hard to bear and I slip out the door once more, closing it behind me.

A deep, shuddering breath leaves my throat as I lean my head against the rough wood, the tears I've been holding back spilling over. I've never felt this dirty before; dirty and small and broken and so very, very ashamed.

"Mari? Mommy, where's Mari?"

I can hear Finn's excited, high-pitched voice coming through the cracks in the wooden panels. I must have woken him up with the creaking of the door. The sound of clumsy, little feet nearing the door makes me turn on my heels and run. I don't know where, but I don't much care. All I know is that I can't face my baby brother right now, none of my family, really. Especially not Finn with his big, brown, adoring eyes, looking up at me as if I'm the most wonderful person to ever grace the earth.

I'm not. Not anymore. What I've done tonight goes against everything I was taught. My father would be ashamed of his son. I can almost hear his voice, telling me to always do the right thing even when it's hard. If I did that, I would never have to be ashamed to look at myself in the mirror. Or into my family's eyes.

Tonight, I didn't do the _right thing_.

I killed a man.

I didn't want to because I'm a thief and not a murderer. I steal things for a living; coin, jewelry, even art and paperwork, but I never stole a life.

The sudden realization makes me stumble, my knees painfully scrapping over the cobble as I fall.

I am still a thief, only this time I have stolen blood, not coin; stole breath, not jewelry...

 _I have stolen a life._

Crawling to a nearby flight of stairs, I sit down heavily on the steps, just trying to breathe as exhaustion sweeps over me and keeps me from running any further. The thought runs in circles around my mind.

 _I have stolen a life. I have stolen a life. I have…_

… stolen lives before.

To some, coin and art and paper equal life, don't they? There are people whose only purpose in life is to accumulate wealth. Others are so deeply connected with their paintings, their sculptures or music, they don't know what else could be worth living for. Yet others deal in secrets, neatly tucked away in books and folders, their lives forfeit if these fall into the wrong hands. Take away what makes a life worth living and you may just as well kill them.

I've done _that_ numerous times before without giving it a second thought. And why should I? I didn't force them to put a dagger to their throat and kill themselves, I just took some trinket or another. It landed a few coins in my pocket, no more harm done.

And even though news sometimes reached my ear that someone I stole from was found dead, it never bothered me. There could have been a hundred reasons for that. Kirkwall is a dangerous place. People here die by the dozen every day.

So, is there even a difference between a stolen piece of art and a stolen life? If things go badly, either will yield a similar result.

I take a deep breath. My gaze lands on my knees that are bloody from the fall I took. More blood.

It makes me think of the young man at the quay. I'll probably think of him for quite a while. Strangely, that prospect isn't as frightening as before. It doesn't make me want to be sick anymore. Instead, I feel peculiarly calm. I can barely keep my eyes open any longer.

For a moment, I ponder making my way back home, but my knees hurt and I'm too tired to move. I feel my eyes drooping shut almost before I fully dragged myself into the nearest entrance, my lips twitching up in something that is almost a smile.

Nothing about tonight has changed me. I'm still a thief. I'm still a brother, a son, doing everything I can to keep my family alive. Even if that means to steal a life.


End file.
